PHOEBE. You are going to the wars? Mr. Brown, is it a jest? VALENTINE. It would be a sorry jest, ma'am. I thought you knew. I concluded that the recruiting sergeant had talked. PHOEBE. The recruiting sergeant? I see. VALENTINE. These stirring times, Miss Phoebe--he is but half a man who stays at home. I have chafed for months. I want to see whether I have any courage, and as to be an army surgeon does not appeal to me, it was enlist or remain behind. To-day I found that there were five waverers. I asked them would they take the shilling if I took it, and they assented. Miss Phoebe, it is not one man I give to the King, but six. PHOEBE (_brightly_). I think you have done bravely. VALENTINE. We leave shortly for the Petersburgh barracks, and I go to London tomorrow; so this is good-bye. PHOEBE. I shall pray that you may be preserved in battle, Mr. Brown. VALENTINE. And you and Miss Susan will write to me when occasion offers? PHOEBE. If you wish it. VALENTINE (_smiling_). With all the stirring news of Quality Street. PHOEBE. It seems stirring to us; it must have been merely laughable to you, who came here from a great city. VALENTINE. Dear Quality Street--that thought me dashing! But I made friends in it, Miss Phoebe, of two very sweet ladies. PHOEBE (_timidly_). Mr. Brown, I wonder why you have been so kind to my sister and me? VALENTINE. The kindness was yours. If at first Miss Susan amused me-- (_Chuckling._) To see her on her knees decorating the little legs of the couch with frills as if it were a child! But it was her sterling qualities that impressed me presently. PHOEBE. And did--did I amuse you also? VALENTINE. Prodigiously, Miss Phoebe. Those other ladies, they were always scolding you, your youthfulness shocked them. I believe they thought you dashing. PHOEBE (_nervously_). I have sometimes feared that I was perhaps too dashing. VALENTINE (_laughing at this_). You delicious Miss Phoebe. You were too quiet. I felt sorry that one so sweet and young should live so grey a life. I wondered whether I could put any little pleasures into it. PHOEBE. The picnics? It was very good of you. VALENTINE. That was only how it began, for soon I knew that it was I who got the pleasures and you who gave them. You have been to me, Miss Phoebe, like a quiet, old-fashioned garden full of the flowers that Englishmen love best because they have known them longest: the daisy, that stands for innocence, and the hyacinth for constancy, and the modest violet and the rose. When I am far away, ma'am, I shall often think of Miss Phoebe's pretty soul, which is her garden, and shut my eyes and walk in it. (_She is smiling gallantly through her pain when_ MISS SUSAN _returns._) MISS SUSAN. Have you--is it--you seem so calm, Phoebe.